Sources & editorial policy

Where facts come from

Every figure in a guide or calculator is traced to a source, and the sources are ranked. In order of weight:

Primary law and official documentation. The article of the tax code, the decree-law, the portaria, the consular requirements published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the municipal resolution, the published rate table. If a rule exists in writing, we cite the writing.
The authority that administers the rule. Guidance from the Autoridade Tributária, Segurança Social, AIMA or the Directorate-General for Health, where it clarifies how a rule is applied in practice.
Reputable secondary sources — professional bodies, established news reporting — used only to locate the primary source, never as the final word on a number we publish.

Sources are listed at the bottom of every guide and every tool page with a direct link, so a reader can disagree with us and check the wording themselves. If you find a claim on this site that is not traceable to one of those levels, treat it as a mistake and tell us.

How pages are dated

Each guide carries a review date and states the year its figures apply to. Portuguese rules move on a January cycle for tax and an unpredictable one for immigration, so the date is the most important thing on the page after the numbers themselves. When a rule changes, the page is rewritten and the date is moved; when we cannot confirm that a rule is still current, the page says so rather than sounding confident.

Where a figure is an editorial estimate rather than an official one — the city budget scenarios are the clearest example — the page says so in the same paragraph as the number, not in a footnote.

Corrections

When an error is reported with a link to the official text, the fix goes in at the source: the rate in the data file, the calculator that reads it, and the prose that explains it. Fixing one without the others is how a site ends up with a calculator that contradicts its own guide.

Corrections are not hidden. A page that has been materially corrected keeps its history in the way it is written: the review date moves, and where a change would otherwise confuse a returning reader, the page says what changed. Use the contact form and include the page address, the passage you are disputing, and the official source that supersedes it.

What is never published here

Invented experience. No claim of years of practice, no implied professional credential, and no biographical detail that the site owner cannot substantiate. Where the owner's real name and background have not yet been supplied, the About page shows a placeholder instead of a story.
Fabricated social proof. No testimonials, no reader reviews, no comment threads, no subscriber counts. If this site ever quotes a real reader, it will be with their permission and their name.
Borrowed identity. No stock photograph of a stranger presented as the author, and no author profile that describes someone who does not exist.
Anonymous authority. The phrase "experts say" is not used. A named institution with a link is used instead, or the claim is dropped.
Paid placement presented as editorial. No company pays for a mention, a ranking or a favourable comparison.
Manufactured urgency. No countdown timers, no "last chance" framing, no implication that a deadline is closing when it is not.

How the guides are produced

Research and drafting are assisted by software, which is a normal part of publishing in 2026 and is worth saying out loud rather than hiding. The parts that cannot be delegated are the parts that matter: choosing the authoritative source, checking every figure against it, deciding what the page must admit it does not cover, and putting a name and a date on the result. Those are the site owner's responsibility, and the placeholder below is where that arrangement gets described in the owner's own words.

[FILL: how you actually work — your research process, whether and how you use AI tools in drafting, and who checks the figures before a page is published]

Image credits

Photographs of places are licensed, credited and used unmodified apart from resizing. If a photograph is replaced, its credit is replaced with it. The list below is generated from the same record the site's pages read, so a credit cannot drift away from the picture it belongs to.

lisbon — Vitor Oliveira, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. File page.
porto — ArielSL98, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. File page.
coast — Klugschnacker, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. File page.
braga — Otto Domes, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. File page.

The four photographs credited to their photographers are Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike images, which oblige anyone reusing them to name the photographer and keep the same licence. Each of those entries links to the file page where its author and licence are stated, so every such credit on this site can be checked rather than taken on trust. The artwork credited to Portugal Sorted is the site's own and carries no third-party rights. No photograph on this site shows a person presented as the site owner.

Independence and funding

This site has no sponsors, no affiliate arrangements and no advertising today. If that changes, the change is disclosed on this page and in the privacy policy before it takes effect, and it will not alter which tools exist or what a guide concludes.

Complaints about something we published

If you believe a page is wrong, unfair or misleading, write to [FILL: real contact email] with the page address and your reasoning. Corrections that come with a source are acted on quickly. If you are the subject of a page and object to how you are described, say so in the same place and it will be treated as a priority.

This page is a list of promises, and a promise about accuracy is only worth what a correction record shows. Hold us to it in writing.

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